June 7, 2022

 

US bipartisan legislation expected to keep agricultural corporations' profit-making in check

 

 

Bipartisan legislation in the US Senate to better regulate the meatpacking industry is designed to keep large agricultural corporations from gouging both farmers and consumers, sponsors said.

 

"We've got consumers going to the meat counters saying they're paying through the nose for meat prices," said Montana Senator Jon Tester in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "And then you've got the national beef corporations – Tyson, Cargill, JBS – that are making record profits.

 

"The system isn't working when you have that kind of situation where the consumers are getting hit hard and the folks that are on the ground in rural America aren't getting a fair return for their products."

 

Tester is co-leader of two bills – the Meat Packing and Special Investigator Act and the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act – that seek to strengthen competition standards set by the Packers & Stockyards Act of 1921. Poor enforcement of these standards has led to overpowered corporate control in the meat industry, critics say.

 

"The meatpacking industry is more consolidated today than it was in 1921," Tester said.  "[Consolidation] doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.  It becomes a bad thing when you've got cow-calf operators, small and medium-sized feeders who say "we're going broke"."

 

The Meat Packing and Special Investigator Act would set up an office in the United States Department of Agriculture to employ a team of investigators to keep tabs on the meat industry for anticompetitive practices.

 

Senators Chuck Grassley and Mike Rounds are co-sponsors on the bill, along with four other Republicans and six Democrats.

 

The Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act would set a mandatory minimum threshold for cash prices of fed cattle – cattle leaving a feedlot – that are sent to large meatpackers. It also includes transparency measures for information related to cattle sales.

 

Senator Deb Fischer is the bill's sponsor.

 

These bills come at a time when the number of independent cattle producers in the United States has significantly shrunk. According to USDA census data compiled by Investigate Midwest, in the past quarter-century, the number of cattle ranches has declined by more than 25%.

 

In 2017, big cattle operations accounted for just 10% of ranches but owned more than half the cattle in the US. For rural America, the loss of small cattle producers is one of the factors that have caused rural population loss and economic decline.

Both the Meat Packing and Special Investigator Act and the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act are scheduled to be released from the committee in the week of June 6; at which point, a committee vote will be scheduled.

 

If passed, the bills will then move on to the US Senate.

- The Daily Yonder